strains of love.
Here from the bowers that crown the plaintive rill
The solemn harp's melodious warblings thrill;
Here from the shadows of the upland grot
The mellow lute renews the swelling note.
As fair Diana, and her virgin train,
Some gaily ramble o'er the flow'ry plain,
In feign'd pursuit of hare or bounding roe,
Their graceful mien and beauteous limbs to show;
Now seeming careless, fearful now and coy,
(So, taught the goddess of unutter'd joy),
And, gliding through the distant glades, display
Each limb, each movement, naked as the day.
Some, light with glee, in careless freedom take
Their playful revels in the crystal lake;
One trembling stands no deeper than the knee
To plunge reluctant, while in sportful glee
Another o'er her sudden laves the tide;
In pearly drops the wishful waters glide,
Reluctant dropping from her breasts of snow;
Beneath the wave another seems to glow;
The am'rous waves her bosom fondly kiss'd,
And rose and fell, as panting, on her breast.
Another swims along with graceful pride,
Her silver arms the glist'ning waves divide,
Her shining sides the fondling waters lave,
Her glowing cheeks are brighten'd by the wave,
Her hair, of mildest yellow, flows from side
To side, as o'er it plays the wanton tide,
And, careless as she turns, her thighs of snow
Their tap'ring rounds in deeper lustre show.

Some gallant Lusians sought the woodland prey,
And, thro' the thickets, forc'd the pathless way;
Where some, in shades impervious to the beam,
Supinely listen'd to the murm'ring stream:
When sudden, through the boughs, the various dyes
Of pink, of scarlet, and of azure rise,
Swift from the verdant banks the loit'rers spring,
Down drops the arrow from the half-drawn string:
Soon they behold 'twas not the rose's hue,
The jonquil's yellow, nor the pansy's blue:
Dazzling the shades the nymphs appear--the zone
And flowing scarf in gold and azure shone.
Naked as Venus stood in Ida's bower,
Some trust the dazzling charms of native power;
Through the green boughs and darkling shades they show
The shining lustre of their native snow,
And every tap'ring, every rounded swell
Of thigh, of bosom, as they glide, reveal.
As visions, cloth'd in dazzling white, they rise,
Then steal unnoted from the flurried e